1
PARENT-CHILD CO-VIEWING OF TV AND COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT OF
THE CHILD
Television viewing is a major part of children’s life. As children tend to spend
more time watching television than doing anything else except sleep, television serves as
a major source for children to understand the human world. Previous studies suggest that
children, especially preschoolers, are a special audience for television (Dorr, 1986). They
tend to “have difficulty understanding television content and are likely to ‘fill in’ their
incomplete comprehension with stereotypes and familiar scripts taken from their more
limited general knowledge of television and the world”(Doubleday & Droege, 1993,
p.35).
Despite the difficulty children encounter in understanding television programs, it
has been shown that children who watch constructive educational programs do better in
developing pre-reading skills (MacBeth, 1996). On the other hand, excessive television
viewing may result in the failure to develop crucial social skills, lack of meaningful
family interaction, sacrifice of reading time and imaginative physical play, and the faulty
expectation that life should deliver easy and instant entertainment (Jason & Hanaway,
1997).
Television viewing patterns set in the preschool years are said to snowball as the
child gets older and schoolwork becomes harder. Children, who watch informative
educational television as preschoolers, tend to watch more informative television as they
get older and use television to complement what they learn in school. On the other hand,
children who watch more entertainment programs tend to use television more to entertain
themselves as they grow older (MacBeth, 1996).